In the World of Atoms

The Election as a Referendum on Masculine Achievement

I have been neglecting my Substack for over a month now. I have been on a coding binge, as I am sometimes inclined to do, and it has been consuming absolutely all of my mind space. Over two years ago, I first envisioned some software I wanted to write. At the time, though, I lacked various pieces of the technical knowledge required to turn my idea into a working prototype. But the human mind is a curious thing, and over the last two years my mind has apparently been churning away in the background, applying some new learnings along the way, connecting some dots for me unawares. It’s weird how often that happens. I am minding my own business when, suddenly, during a totally random moment, I become aware of a solution to a problem that I am not even consciously thinking about just then. That’s what happened right about the time of my last Substack post. And now, multiple thousands of lines of code later, my prototype is working as I had originally imagined it over two years ago. This is a deeply satisfying state of affairs.

I very much enjoy the inventive aspects of my work, but any temptation toward self-flattery is kept in check by the realization that I merely innovate in the world of bits. All of my innovation is digital, involving only computation and data. I have no history of innovation in the world of atoms, where any achievements are far more difficult to come by. In the world of bits, invention is easier because bits do not resist the inventor. An inventor is constrained only by his own know-how and imagination. That the digital world does not resist us is, as it happens, part of the appeal of video games to boys and men. Games present the illusion of the material world, but one in which the simulated atoms on the screen are no more resistant to the players than digital bits. A mere press of a button causes the imaginary atoms being simulated on the screen to behave with the easy pliability of digital abstractions.

American culture has a long history of innovation and accomplishment. But something unique, even disappointing, about the last generation or two, has been the extent to which the vast majority of innovation has been confined to the realm of bits and bytes. Innovation in the material realm, where atoms exhibit much more resistance to manipulation, has been far less robust. Peter Thiel who, along with Elon Musk was one of the original founders of PayPal, has been opining on this very subject for quite a while now.

For the last generation at least, some of the brightest technical minds in the world have been enriching themselves primarily by applying their expertise to the tawdry pursuit of spying on their users. The advertising business model employed by the techno behemoths is made possible only by technology that is the digital equivalent to peeping in other people’s windows. Vast inventive efforts have been invested in technologies for manipulating the attention and behavior of other human beings. This relies on a massive surveillance infrastructure. Thousands of software engineers, who could have otherwise been using their skills to improve the world, have instead been enriching themselves by spying on their neighbors. Their massive global platform for digital voyeurism has gone largely unchecked because it is invisible, furtively lurking within the world of bits. It has also gone unchecked because almost anything that is remotely complex is incomprehensible to the mediocrities who inhabit our political class. Though they think of themselves as our betters, they routinely fail at the most fundamental responsibilities of governance.

Many of the historical efforts to innovate in the world of atoms have been dominated by men. This is partially a facet of the material world’s resistance to alteration, working in relation to the greater physical strength and durability of male anatomy. No doubt the disgust response being less sensitive in men than in women also plays a role. Modern feminists, having - as they do - a preoccupation with resentful interpretations of human history, will usually jump to the conclusion that the reason for male dominance in material achievements is sex discrimination. But the far simpler explanation is that physical strength has always been a critical aspect of accomplishing many things in the material world.

One of the more hilarious conceits of modern progressives, hilarious even though thoroughly malign, is that most of what we observe from human history, where gender roles are concerned, should generally be understood as an outcome of male prejudice and privilege. As if no cultures before us, throughout all of human history, ever reflected the accumulated learning from their experience of material reality. But the comforts and mechanical automation that facilitate such progressive conceits were only made possible by the very men, despised by progressives, who through the centuries did the difficult work of innovating in the world of atoms.

The material world’s resistance to alteration serves to function as its own form of discrimination against women, if by “discrimination” we mean that women should be as accomplished as men at anything they decide to undertake. But women’s experience is sometimes less an artifact of discrimination by men than discrimination by material reality itself, which has circumscribed some kinds of female achievement. It seems plainly obvious that there is much about the progressive feminist mindset which is, at its root, merely resentful of reality itself. The Christian apostle Paul’s comments spring to mind on this point: “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Modern progressive feminism increasingly comes across like nothing so much as a gaggle of uniquely unpleasant women raging against the very fact of their being women.

One of the things I found noteworthy about the recent election was what we might call the achievement gap, between the respective contestants, where accomplishment in the world of atoms was concerned. Trump cut his professional teeth building physical things, altering the very form of the material world in pursuits historically associated with the physical strength more characteristic of men. And it is equally noteworthy that he attracted support from others who were likewise high achievers in the world of atoms. While Elon Musk may have started out innovating in digital bits, he has become a history altering figure for his innovation in the world of atoms. From rockets to cars, from boring machines to manufacturing technologies, the sheer breadth and success of his accomplishments in the world of atoms is without parallel and without precedent for many generations past. On the other side of the electoral contest were people who trafficked primarily in words, and laws, and regulations, and socio-political machinations. But they had little to recommend them in the form of any significant accomplishments in the world of atoms.

Thus we might say the recent election was a contest between the builders and the schemers. And what a fitting contrast that turned out to be. It came down to a choice between those who had learned, through actually succeeding at difficult undertakings, how the world of atoms really works, and those on the other side whose professional pursuit of manipulation and control can easily be untethered from the truth, and very often is.

In the world we actually inhabit, contra the world inside progressive imaginations, the pursuit of excellence is inseparable from the pursuit of truth. Reality has the final say. And one suspects that men like Donald Trump and Elon Musk are unnerving to progressives precisely because their quintessentially masculine accomplishments serve as embarrassing evidence of the appalling mendacity of the entire progressive narrative.